Presented by Xsolla
Dean Takahashi was joined by Berkley Egenes, chief marketing officer and chief growth officer at Xsolla, for another GamesBeat Live exclusive. GamesBeat has been touring the world with Xsolla, most recently in Sao Paulo, and recently caught up with Egenes to talk about Xsolla’s latest product lineup, from new backend innovations to help streamline the development process to payment expansions in Asia, Xsolla Instant Solutions and more.
The new and improved Xsolla backend
The company has been working on building out its backend solution for some time, and with the acquisition and partnership with AcceleratXR last year, they’ve been building upon their already award-winning design and AAA quality backend solution to streamline the game development process. It’s a cross-platform solution which enables cross-play opportunities, across PC, mobile, console and the web.
“The idea is to eliminate friction, eliminate cost and time of labor needed for separate builds as a game’s going through that process,” Egenes said. “We hear from a lot of developers that they’ll build for a web version, and then how do you get it to PC? How do you get it to mobile? How do I get it to console? That can be a bit of a challenge, not only from time, but people, cost and infrastructure. We’re able to help you do that with a single build, enhancing game functionality on player engagement, streamlining account management, efficient matchmaking, dynamic quest systems and robust cross-play opportunity.”
As a game is launched on multiple platforms, players are enabled to pay the way they want and play on the platform they want. Developers are not charged upfront as this solution also includes backend hosting. Xsolla charges only a 5% royalty.
“It allows developers to focus on the creativity and the technicality by minimizing the complexities and what’s required for the build,” Egenes explains. “Let us take on the hard stuff so they can focus on creating this amazing, creative experience and on those upcoming and ongoing enhancements as they build their roadmap.”
Xsolla will have full demos and success stories ready to share with developers in August at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.
Payment expansion in Asia
Earlier in the year, Xsolla launched five new payment partners in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, they’re looking at the South East/Asia Pacific markets, and areas like the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan and more. They’re partnering with Maya Pay Now, WeChat Pay, Hong Kong JazzCash and Easypaisa, with the goal of giving players the opportunity to pay in the way that works best for them. With reduced friction during checkout, developers see an improvement in conversion rates, giving easy access to players who want to buy games and add-ons. It’s a key move in a market where the gaming audience is young and particularly passionate about gaming, well into adulthood and a strong market for reaching mobile players.
“This is a substantial opportunity for our developer partners — whether you’re a game in Cyprus, in South Africa or you could be a game in Montreal — to be able to enter those markets more easily, more effectively, and let us take that load on for them,” Egenes says. “And that opportunity to enable connectivity, with less friction so that they can grow their game into those specific markets.”
Xsolla Instant Solutions
Speed to market is the holy grail for developers, from creative to launch to starting to turn a profit to new and lucrative revenue streams. Xsolla’s Instant Solutions, which includes Instant Game Sales, Instant Launcher and Instant Cloud Gaming following the release of Instant Web Shop in March 2024, all tools built to launch their games directly to consumers within hours versus weeks or months by simplifying the integration process, Egenes says.
“They can attract new paying audiences and enable that faster with an instant launcher, instant cloud and instant web shop,” he explains. “The key message here is that all you need is a link to your game and the platform. Grab that information and put that together. Put it up online, and we have the tools to help you do it simply, quickly and in a matter of hours. So you could do something in 24 hours and go through the beta test and A/B test with your users quickly from a direct-to-consumer perspective, and enable that faster, from idea to revenue for the games.”
The Xsolla mobile SDKs
Compliance and regulations are evolving rapidly in the mobile game space, and that’s opened up one of the biggest opportunities for game developers in a long time. Games are no longer completely dependent on the mobile app stores; now, developers can develop their own alternative distribution streams. To aid that, Xsolla has developed SDKs for both mobile operating systems, designed to streamline in-app payments and support out-of-store alternative distribution.
“Out-of-store payments enable developers to accept those payments outside the traditional app stores,” Egenes said. “We’re providing more flexibility and reducing commission costs associated with those transactions. It allows these developers to create the systems and alternative payments, broadening the distribution and giving them more opportunities. Launch your game in the app store, and then have other opportunities to monetize, grow and engage with your user base within compliance with all the rules from the app stores and terms of service. Reach out to your ecosystem and engage with your players from a direct-to-consumer perspective. Offer these bundles, offer these opportunities. And again, it gives players the option of where they want to go purchase the game and where they want to find the game.”
Xsolla is working with the developers of games like Crossout, Modern Warships, Fantasy Tales: Sword and Magic, and SquadBlast to monetize those games and make it easy for them to market to players around the world. It also finds new ways to distribute games and gives players new ways to pay for both games and in-app transactions.
“It’s a tough market out there,” Egenes said. “From that perspective, there are so many games that come out, but rising above the clutter, getting your game promoted, being able to take that into control and provide these options, that’s one of the things that we love to hear, love to engage with our partners, is give them options and give them control of how they’re going to market their game and then make money at the end of the day. And if we can provide that access and equal opportunity for everyone worldwide to play the game where they want to play, on their platform of choice, and pay how they want across platforms, then the player wins too.”
Investing in game and player connectivity
In other news, Xsolla just announced its strategic acquisition of LF.Group, which creates innovative connectivity solutions for gamers through a toolkit that includes a web platform, a Discord bot and a mobile app. The acquisition is aimed at enhancing Xsolla’s developer support strategy, transforming how they interact with their audiences by improving the creator and gamer experience in Xsolla’s commerce solution, Xsolla Mall.
The mall is a platform that supports the sale of game content via custom-branded shops by influencers and direct-to-consumer stores, and in collaboration with LF.Group, allows Xsolla to expand its influencer acquisition network and improve the distribution of virtual items and game keys globally.
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